


lonely

by suzukigunichiban



Category: All Elite Wrestling, Being The Elite (Web Series)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Depression, Insomnia, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:06:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23783605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suzukigunichiban/pseuds/suzukigunichiban
Summary: A look into the mind of a very lonely cowboy.
Kudos: 12





	lonely

**Author's Note:**

> this one’s rough, folks. not gonna lie. i don’t think i’ve ever wrote angst with no happy ending before. and to be honest i might delete it later, which is also something i’ve never done with any fics of mine, but tbh this is a hell of a lot of projecting onto my favorite wrestling cowboy, so. might be a little too much for me to keep up, but. here it is. i wrote it in like 2 hours and i’m not gonna proofread so if it sucks then ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Weary blue eyes stared blankly at the amber colored drink held lazily in his calloused fingers, the buzz from the alcohol feeling less like the pleasant warmth Adam was hoping for and more like a heavy weight in his already aching bones.  _ Fuck.  _ He didn’t want this to be another one of  _ those  _ nights - nights where he sat up alone in his hotel room, nearing two or three in the morning, thinking about nothing and everything all at once. 

His eyebrows knit together in a light scowl. Was it too much to ask to have a good night? Just  _ one,  _ that was all he wanted. He didn’t think that was particularly greedy of him to ask. Just  _ one  _ night, he pleaded with no one,  _ one  _ night where he didn’t feel like he was drowning. 

One night where he felt like he wasn’t holding hand out, begging,  _ pleading  _ for help as silently and as loudly as he could, only for his so-called  _ friends  _ to be staring at him as blankly and emotionlessly as he was staring at his  _ fucking  _ whisky. 

Adam took another sip of the aforementioned drink, hoping that enough of the shit would put him to a dreamless sleep, instead of the godawful fuckin’ nightmares he’d been having every time he actually managed to get some sleep at all. It was like the universe was playing tricks on him; dangling sleep over his head every night, making him jump as high as he could to try to reach it, and on the  _ rare  _ chances he was able to grasp it, it was like he was plagued with the worst nightmares his mind could think up. 

He felt like he was getting to the point where he shouldn’t bother trying to sleep at all. Why bother even laying down? Adam’s blue eyes flickered to his hotel bed, still untouched from the afternoon’s lovely housekeeper making it from that morning’s mess. It was nearing three in the morning. He had a flight to catch at eight. He was still in his jeans. He hadn’t even taken his boots off yet.

Whatever. He’d sleep on the plane, if he could. Or maybe he wouldn’t. Whatever. He’d get to it when he got to it. 

Another sip. 

It was starting to get almost tasteless. That probably wasn’t a good sign. Adam couldn’t really bring himself to care about that, though, either. Kinda figured that the alcohol would abandon him, too. Just like everyone always did in the end.

He swirled the beverage gently in his hand, watching it slosh around in the mostly-empty plastic cup, admitting to himself that he’d probably not really helped in convincing his friends to stay. In fact, he was probably the  _ most  _ responsible for pushing them away. He  _ did  _ try to leave first. 

But, in his own defense, Adam only wanted to leave because he wanted to do it before  _ they  _ tossed  _ him  _ out. How was he to know they’d try to drag him back in? 

Well… he should have. He should have known. 

Maybe not for the right reasons, not because he was their friend and they didn’t want him to go, but because they felt like he was obligated to stay. And hell, maybe he was. Maybe he  _ did  _ owe it all to the  _ fucking  _ Elite. Adam scowled again, looking away from his whisky and over to his championship belt, which only served to make him  _ angrier.  _

Kenny was, at least, better than most of them. Better than Matt and Nick anyway, and sure as shit better than Cody, who wasn’t around enough to give a shit. Wasn’t to say that he was blameless for Adam’s descent into what felt like fucking  _ madness…  _ **** but he probably carried the least of the blame. So Adam worked with him to keep the belt, thinking that, if all else failed, at least he was  _ some  _ kind of champion. Tag team champion wasn’t ideal… but a belt was a belt. 

And it  _ did,  _ sometimes, serve to make him feel better. Not tonight, because everything and their mama seemed to be setting him off tonight, but mostly, it was something he was proud to have and hold - because lord knew he wasn’t proud of anything else in his fuckin’ life. 

But tonight, all it was doing was reminding him of how even  _ Kenny,  _ who should be the  _ one person  _ in the fucking world who would support him, as his co-champion, didn’t care about him. Kenny just wanted someone to hold up a belt with. Nick and Matt sure as shit didn’t care, they just cared about the image of the  _ perfect  _ Elite looking torn and tattered, and Adam didn’t know  _ what  _ the fuck Cody cared about anymore, but it sure as shit wasn’t for other people. 

Tears pricked his eyes, but he stubbornly blinked them away, and polished off the rest of his cup, mechanically getting up and throwing it away in the trash can under the sink, taking the time while he was there to get some cold water on his hands and gently rub it onto his face, running his fingers through his curls and looking at the man he saw in the mirror. 

That was supposed to be him, Adam knew, but he didn’t see himself. He didn’t know  _ who  _ he saw. Some other man, maybe, but not Adam. He sure looked a lot like Adam used to, though. The resemblance was uncanny. 

A humorless chuckle slipped past his lips, and before he knew it, he was taking another sip straight from the bottle. He was almost relieved when it burned his throat the way it was meant to, when it settled like shit in his empty stomach. If he got sick, he might be able to sleep. Shitty reasoning, he knew… but if it worked, it worked. Adam never claimed to be the purveyor of good habits anyway. 

Besides, it wasn’t like anyone would be around to scold him for it. No one blinked an eye anymore when he did dumb shit. It was almost  _ expected  _ of him. And, well, it’d be rude to let the people down, right? 

Adam began to unbutton his shirt and toe out of his boots, lazily draping his shirt over the armchair he’d previously been in before he stumbled out of his jeans. He scowled as he nearly tripped trying to get the damn thing off his thighs, glaring at the offending denim once he was, at least, in nothing but his underwear. 

And, there he was. Shooting daggers at a pair of fuckin’ pants. Jesus.

Adam rubbed his eyes, shaking his head and collapsing on the bed, on top of the blankets, too exhausted to do anything else. He probably looked real pathetic right now, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. No one else did, so why should he?

His dull eyes squeezed shut as he gripped the pillow his head was resting on top of tightly, his knuckles straining against his skin at the harshness of the grip. No one cared… and he was fucking  _ lonely.  _

There. 

He said it. 

Adam was  _ lonely.  _

A single tear slipped past without him noticing, and then he couldn’t bring himself to stop the rest that came crashing down on him, until he was soaking the ugly looking blanket with his tears, ugly sobs choking his throat as everything hit him all at once. 

He was fuckin’  _ lonely.  _

He missed his old life - missed his friends, missed being happy, missed sleeping, missed not drinking every fuckin’ night. He missed when he actually used to smile. Missed when he could recognize whoever the fuck he saw in the mirror. 

_ Christ,  _ he was fuckin’ lonely. 

Lonely to his very core, lonely and hollow and fuckin’  _ sad.  _

He ached, he  _ ached  _ to be okay again. God, more than anything, he didn’t want to be lonely, didn’t want to be whoever he turned into these last few months. He wanted people to care about him, to  _ love  _ him. He didn’t know how much longer he could carry on like he was, half naked and drunk, sobbing into his hotel bed. 

Eventually, blissfully, he felt his body surrender to the exhaustion of the full-on mental breakdown. His cries quieted and his eyes stopped pouring out tears like Niagra fuckin’ Falls, and he was finally able to sink into blackness. 

Maybe tonight would be the night. The dreamless sleep he’d been hoping for. Probably not, but at least he could hope, for once, just for  _ one  _ night, that in his dreams, he wouldn’t be as lonely as he felt in his waking hours.

Yeah, right.

If only he was that lucky. 

**Author's Note:**

> zackmephisto dot tumblr dot com


End file.
